Alliant STEEL powder in handguns

[tvfinak]

I recently emailed Alliant concerning the use of their Steel shotgun powders in handguns:

To: Alliant Reloading
Subject: Alliant Powder - Ask the Expert Form

I've used your Steel shotgun powder in the .44 Mag and .500 S&W mags and
it seems to work quite well. However I can find no information on using
this powder in a handgun. Is it unsafe or just unknown or ?? Thanks!


this is the reponse I received:

"We tried some STEEL in 44 mag years ago and the results were dismal.
The velocity/pressure variations were extreme. I recommend either our
2400 or 300MP powders. For these powders, data is available so there is
no need to speculate as you have done with STEEL. Thanks for your note
and have a nice day.

Ben Amonette
Consumer Service Manager"


I'll continue to work with this powder and heavy bullets as the results appeared pretty good to me. I'll chrono graph some and see how consistant they are. Perhaps Alliant only tried the powder with lighter bullets?

From what I can tell so far the powder is quite a bit slower than Blue Dot. I loaded 14 gr. behind a 310 gr. bullets and the load was quite mild- the max load of Blue Dot Alliant shows with a 240 gr. bullet is only 13.7 although my Sierra manual shows 14.6 gr with a 300 gr. bullet.

[tvfinak]

A bit more on STEEL powder

I chronographed some loads yesterday and I didn't see a lot of variance in the velocities.

What I did note in loading them is that the loads dropped through my RCBS powder measure varied considerably as compared to other powders I've used. The large flakes are apparently a major issue in metering. I may try a Lyman measure and see if that one does better.

On the positive side so far the powder is relatively bulky and burns cleanly. The burning rate between Blue Dot and 2400 and the bulky nature also shows some promise in medium powered loads.

[PRDATR]

Be careful using Blue Dot in revolvers as unbunt powder has a nasty habit of finding it's way under the extractor.

[tvfinak]

The Steel powder is large bulky flakes that burn very clean - one big plus in its favor.

2400 was one of the worse powders Ican recall for leaving a lot of trash/ash/unburnt power grains to get under your extractor. I learned early on to keep the muzzle pointed up when I unloaded the spent cases.

Be careful using Blue Dot in revolvers as unbunt powder has a nasty habit of finding it's way under the extractor.